February 10 The Offence
of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance 1979, (or, simply, the Hudood
Ordinance), has been promulgated and a system of "Islamic" punishments
is introduced.

The punishment for adultery by a married person is
stoning to death, while 100 lashes will be awarded to an unmarried person
accused of the crime. Those making false allegations regarding adultery
will be awarded 80 lashes and disqualified from giving testimony in future.

Minors may also be convicted for committing adultery
or rape under this ordinance, and punished with imprisonment and lashes.

The punishment for drinking is 80 lashes; for the
theft of imperishable property equal to 4,457 grams of gold or more, one
hand is to be amputated. All these punishments
are to be carried out in public.

April 4 Former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
was hanged today, at 2:04 a.m. His body was taken to his ancestral village,
Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, Larkana, where he was buried under strict army supervision.

Benazir

May 29 Benazir Bhutto is released for the first time
since the execution of her father.

Pakistan joins Non-Aligned Movement

September 6. Zia represents Pakistan at 6th NAM summit
in Havana (Cuba), hosted by Fidel Castro. Reportedly, Zia is pleased with
the warm reception and media attention accorded to him in the Caribbean
heaven. Even the PLO Chief Yasser Arafat extended a warm embrace and a
buss on the cheek, despite the fact that on an earlier occasion Arafat's
colleagues had denounced Zia as the man who "made the plans for King
Hussein's massacre of the Palestinians" in Jordan in 1970.

Action replay

October 16 Zia has once again postponed elections,
scheduled for November 17. Political parties have been banned, their offices
sealed, and all political activities declared illegal. Full-fledged "Islamisation"
is also on the anvil.

Muzzling the press

October 16 Martial Law regulation 49 imposes pre-censorship
on the press and allows journalists violating the rules to be fined, imprisoned
or flogged.

Martial Law's B-team?

Following the ban on all political parties, members of the
Jamaat-e- Islami have assembled under the banner, Khidmat-e- Islami (Service
of Islam). Detractors call them the 'Martial Law's B-team.'

The Russians are coming

December 27: Soviet Red Army soldiers in Afghanistan

Rape of reason

Incidents of rape have increased following the promulgation
of the Hudood Ordinance, apparently because the law does not distinguish
between rape and adultery. Moreover, proof of rape requires the evidence
of "four adult, pious and religious male Muslims." It being
quite unlikely for such people to always be present at the scene of the
crime, several victims have already been charged with adultery, their
complain of rape being taken as a "confession to have had sexual
intercourse." The law does not even exempt minor girls from punishment,
and some children convicted for adultery are reported to be as young as
nine.

Painter found dead

Painter Ahmed Pervaiz is found in a comatose condition
in a seedy hotel near Karachi;s Cantonement station by artistes Laila
Shehzada and Ali Imam. No one noticed his absence at first because his
friends had long grown accustomed to his disappearances. He would spend
days in the company of malangs at Abdullah Shah Ghazi mazaar, or smoking
joints with hippies at Hawkes Bay, but always returned to the world after
these stints. But not this time (Contributed by Firuza Pastakia).

NAFDEC makes film

March 23 NAFDEC releases film about Partition,
Khak Aur Khoon, based on bestselling novel by Nasim Hijazi

Maula Jut

Released on February 11, the bloody revenge saga of Maula
Jut (Sultan Rahi) and Noori Nat (Mustafa Qureshi) capture the imagination
of the rural Pakistan.

Our
Nobel Physicist

Dr. Abdus Salam
(left) in his study, circa 1970, and (right) receiving
Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden 1979

October 15 Dr. Abdus Salam is the first
Pakistani to be nominated for a Nobel Prize. He will share
the award with two colleagues working at his Italy based centre
for advanced research in physics. Despite this mammoth achievement,
the physicist has received little official applause, perhaps
as a consequence of his Ahmedi background.

Counter culture

The advent of the cassette player into rural Pakistan
spawns a new revolution. Tired of the increasingly dull output from radio,
rural Punjab and Sindh create their variant of pop folk, complete with
references to trucks, tractors and migration to the Gulf and Karachi.

Ataullah Isakhelvi is at the vanguard of this movement,
his songs travelling from the transporter belt of Mianwali to engulf the
country. A do-it-yourself musical culture is born with the Punjab's Seraiki
belt at its helm. But many others also get in on the act, from Sargodha,
Rahim Yar Khan, Jhang and Chiniot to the Hazara division of the Frontier.
Meanwhile, further South, Jala Chandio becomes the king of Sindhi folk
pop (Contributed by Talat Aslam).